VATICAN CITY  The Christmas season kicked off Friday at the Vatican with the traditional lighting of the tree in St. Peter's Square -- and a reminder from the pope about what happened when the "lights" of God were turned off in past atheistic regimes.

--snip--

"And when in the past they tried to stamp out the light of God to instead turn on illusory and misleading glows, there were seasons of tragic violence against man," he said.

"And this is because when they tried to cancel God's name from the pages of history, the result was a distortion, where even the most noble and beautiful words, like `freedom,' `common good' and `justice' ... lost their true meaning."

--snip--

The Vatican on Friday released the pope's peace message, in which he called for policymakers to think of themselves as peacemakers in economic and social policy. He warned that abortion and gay marriage were threats to peace

The Vatican on Friday released the pope's peace message, in which he called for policymakers to think of themselves as peacemakers in economic and social policy. He warned that abortion and gay marriage were threats to peace.

"Those who insufficiently value human life, and in consequence, support among other things the liberalization of abortion perhaps do not realize that in this way they are proposing the pursuit of a false peace," since peace presupposes protecting the weakest, he wrote.

Laws granting legal status for gay unions, he said, "actually harm and help destabilize marriage" by obscuring its specific nature as a union between man and woman that forms the basis of society.

Right on the money.

Attacking the sacredness of life and the foundation of society is a sure recipe for destabilization, and that has always led to war of one kind or another.

5
posted on 12/15/2012 4:10:56 PM PST
by xzins
(Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)

There is no defilement of the sacrament, there is defilement of the institution of marriage. There is a difference.

He says about correctly about defending marriage and life, “”These principles are not truths of faith, nor are they simply a corollary of the right to religious freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, accessible to reason and thus common to all humanity. The Churchs efforts to promote them are not therefore confessional in character, but addressed to all people, whatever their religious affiliation. Efforts of this kind are all the more necessary the more these principles are denied or misunderstood, since this constitutes an offense against the truth of the human person, with serious harm to justice and peace.”

We cannot defend what we do not correctly identify. Some enemies of marriage already claim there should be no societal role for it but they are wrong, this is not a religious issue.

Prayers up for a return to the Judeo-Christian values that formed the underpinnings of our civilization.

Until we see a resurgence in religious attendance at churches and synagogues and concomitant morality-based behavior we will experience an ever-deepening winter of civil and cultural decay.

Re the pope’s:
“And this is because when they tried to cancel God’s name from the pages of history, the result was a distortion, where even the most noble and beautiful words, like `freedom,’ `common good’ and `justice’ ... lost their true meaning.”

Natural marriage is a reality which does not even require supernatural revelation to understand. Looking at the conditions necessary for the flourishing of individuals, families, societies, and civilizations, we can see that the durable union of a man and a woman, constructing a safe and secure marital "nest" for the begetting and raising of their children, is the indispensible foundation of human well-being even on the purely natural level.

But when it breaks down, it breaks down in a predictable decomposition-sequence. Marriage is first desacralized, then depersonalized, then dehumanized.

It does not fall to the level of brutes, because we humans --- when we fall --- do not fall to the level of the animalistic. We fall to the level of the demonic.

12
posted on 12/16/2012 8:10:47 AM PST
by Mrs. Don-o
("Justice and judgment are the foundation of His throne." Psalm 89:14)

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